Facebook Upgrades Events, Integrates Wall Publisher (Updated)

The publisher is rapidly becoming the central tool for publishing information through Facebook to the feed, with events being the latest product to integrate the feature. This evening Facebook began rolling out an upgraded version of events which places a publisher directly within the wall, enabling event administrators to publish content with tags. We believe that all confirmed attendees will also see the content within their stream. (See update below)
Up until now, all events could only reach out to users via messages to the users’ inboxes, and anytime a wall post was made, there wasn’t any sort of notification. By integrating a stream directly into the wall, it enables events to have more of a conversation before, during, and after an event. While it may not be a complete redesign of the Facebook Events product, it is a significant upgrade.

Despite Facebook refraining from publicly announcing the product roadmap for events, my guess is that the functionality (and design) will slowly begin to mimic Facebook Pages. The idea is that Facebook is becoming a platform which enables users to socialize around various objects: events, pages, groups, photos, videos, applications, and friends. How this socialization takes place is relatively consistent from product to product.

Whether it’s a wall with comments and likes, or tabs that provide extended functionality, Facebook is aiming to be the product which enables anybody to instantly socialize anything. It’s a broad vision but it’s pretty clear that the products are all evolving in this direction, with this upgrade being one step along the path. We’ve reached out to Facebook for confirmation about the event integration with the stream and will be sure to update when we hear more.